Corrected explanation
Amusing hand

Yes, and when the bidding comes back around to North, he's entitled to ask what 4♣ meant.

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I have come to realise it is futile to expect or hope a regular club game will be run in accordance with the laws. -- Jillybean
Factor in Alzheimers, and I can not recall a bad result from aggessive action in this situation. -- Aguahombre
When I look through the hand records after a club evening, the boards I didn't play are always the ones where I would have done great. -- Cherdano

But it's not his turn to call until AFTER he decides whether to withdraw his earlier pass. The Law doesn't say "at his turn to call, or other times when these Laws require him to state a decision".

True (although, as Robin points out, it would make more sense if it did). I intended only to say that North can ask about 4♣ at some point, since Iviehoff seemed to be suggesting that he could never do so.

I want my opponents to leave my table with a smile on their face and without matchpoints on their score card - in that order.
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the new discoveries, is not “Eureka!” (I found it!), but “That’s funny…” – Isaac Asimov
The only reason God did not put "Thou shalt mind thine own business" in the Ten Commandments was that He thought that it was too obvious to need stating. - Kenberg

And there is no law that prevents North from ending up making the same call as he made the first time, i.e. not changing his call after all.

I was about to say the same thing.

So I think the only question remaining is what "prior" means. Does it just refer to time, so that the withdrawn 4♣ call is included because it happened in the past, or does it refer to the sequence of the legal auction, which no longer includes this call because the auction has been rewound?

Just to explain this question - it had been suggested to me that the TD made an error in allowing North to change his bid at this point, obviously if that's not true then there can be no case for redress.

I think you should get whoever thought this to read Law 21B1A.

campboy, on 2012-March-09, 16:57, said:

4♣ is prior in the perfectly ordinary sense of "occurring earlier than". It is subsequent to North's pass, sure; that seems to be all 21B2 is saying. It is prior to his attempt to change that pass.

Law 20F1 says that North, at his turn to call, "is entitled to know about calls actually made". The 4♣ call was actually made.

I really cannot see how anyone can disagree with this. I know some of you do, but I cannot see the logic.

David Stevenson

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